The Workday Liberal

Bill Kristol's hit piece on Obama in the NY Times ended up with him issuing a retraction, which embarrassment is what most of the lefty blogosphere chortled about today. It certainly is noteworthy anytime a right wing flack has to eat some crow, but I think Democrats are missing the forest for the trees with this article. The tree everyone is focusing on is how Kristol was willing to lift a report from a far right website without bothering to check that report's veracity, and then had to retract. But the forest is that Kristol's entire piece is a hit on Obama, and Kristol makes no bones about his wishing to see Hillary Clinton win the nomination.

Believe you me, when it comes to trees in this forest they are plentiful. Limbaugh implores his listeners to cross party lines to vote for Hillary and we see a drastic increase in the percentage of Republicans voting for a Democrat, with the vast majority of those new found Republican votes going to Clinton. One of the earliest manifestations of this crossover support for Clinton was Ann Coulter promising to support Clinton. These two examples are the best known, but there are many drudger erm... other, examples of the right wing attack dogs being loosed on Obama to the express or implied benefit of Senator Clinton (including the hit piece on Obama from Newsmax which fed Kristol his erroneous fact).

It should speak volumes to the Democratic party that our putative nominee is being savaged by the right, more often than not with the express intent of supporting Senator Clinton. Bill Kristol is the embodiment of the smarmy, unethical and intellectually bankrupt far right fetid mouthpiece. He ends the Obama hit column with the following paragraph:

With no particular dog in the Democratic fight, many conservatives have tended to think it would be good for the country if Obama were to win the Democratic nomination, freeing us from the dreary prospect of the return of the House of Clinton. Now I wonder. Might the country be better off with the cynicism of the Clintons than the conceit of Obama?

I for one am not interested in allowing Kristol, Limbaugh, Newsmax, Coulter, or any of the rest of that pack of right wing freaks to pick the Democratic nominee.

So let me focus on the Obama hit piece by Kristol, beyond the retraction which has the entire left chortling. His article is titled "Generation Obama". Kristol works himself into high dudgeon over how Obama's website has a section called Generation Obama which is geared to his youthful supporters. According to Kristol it is the height of arrogance and conceit for Obama to label an entire generation as his own.

Either Kristol has virtually no experience in campaigns in general, or his entire thesis is an unfair cheapshot at Senator Obama. Campaigns inevitably allow people who are interested in the campaign to join coalitions which are geared to an individual's interests. Why is it that Kristol can find himself so hot and bothered over Generation Obama, but not bother to load up Senator Clinton's site and link over to a section titled "Women For Hillary". Now if one were to read that title with just the wrong attitude one could leap to the conclusion that Senator Clinton was assuming that all women are for her. One would be completely off base with that claim, but it makes just as much sense as Kristol's attack on Obama.

But wait... it gets even better! Google up "women for mccain" and you will find that even John McCain is so conceited as to feature a segment on his official site which purports that the fairer sex are for him! I am aghast!! (not)

So Kristol's real problem here is that the Obama webmaster puts a catchy, gimicky title on their interest group sections. It's not Senator Obama's fault that we are left wondering what is meant by the Clinton team with the title her site uses for the same demographic: "Hillblazers". Senator Obama just has a catchier title for his youth group. Actually, on this one Senator McCain actually passes the Kristol smell test when it comes to the youth vote. I can't find any segment of his site which is dedicated to youth at all, beyond allowing the browser to sign up for the McCain Youth Coalition which doesn't seem to actually exist. I'm certainly not savvy when it comes to McCain's website, but he's not making it easy to find his youth coalition either.

At least we have Kristol admitting that he's coming to favor Senator Clinton for the Democratic nomination. The first seedling he planted in this particular forest didn't amount to much beyond embarrassing the author, but I'm certain he will contribute more to the cause of supporting Clinton by attacking Obama.